HAMBURG
- ALMATA '02
travelmates
mates
5

Maggie. Iran, Esfahan-Shiraz road.
Maggie is an aging Magirus-Deutz truck, recently transformed into a deluxe travel vehicle by Andy and Markus, two Germans from Detmold. These two had reached a point where most people would agree that emigrating to New Zealand is the best, if not only, option. But instead of taking a plane like most other people would have done, they decided to make emigration their vacation of a lifetime, acquired Maggie, and put in countless hours of work and substantial money to make her a travel-wonder with two comfortable beds, table, kitchen, 200 l water tanks, fridge, shower etc. and all the tools, including a welder, you need to make it to NZL (see their website www.worldtrucking.info). I met them in front of the tourist information in Esfahan, where we chatted for about 3 minutes before the two invited me to come to Persepolis and Shiraz with them in the truck, which, as I told them, would have been too far off on the bike. I must say that I quite enjoyed the comforts of truck travelling during those 4 days and 5 nights, especially the laundry facilities:

Holger washing his clothes. Iran, Esfahan.
All you need to do is put your clothes into this barrel with some warm water and detergent, and kick the barrel around a little bit. Done. And if you are really lazy, just put the barrel onto the truck's roof while driving, then you do not need to kick, and in Iran, you do not even need warm water.
Another great thing was that 1.90 m, long-haired, blond Andy deflected all of that tiring attention:

Andy (blond hair), Markus (brown hair), and the eternal crowd. Iran, Shiraz (park).
Most importantly, though, I enjoyed travelling with these two nice guys.

Andy, Markus, and Holger. Iran, Shiraz (restaurant).